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Friday, November 23, 2012

Walking with God

This past week at my youth group I had the privilege of teaching the lesson for the night. (Special hello to any River Warriors youth who are reading this!!!) I talked about the difference between head knowledge of God and heart belief in God. About how I can know (head) that God loves me, but when it actually hits a hard reality of a struggle I'm facing or a sin I keep committing, my true beliefs are exposed and the small fears that creep up tell me my heart is not yet fully convinced that God really does love me and offers complete forgiveness. I also showed a clip from this sermon by Andy Stanley (starting at 20:50 for about 10 minutes, great stuff!).

After the lesson, we break into small groups, and I had prepared a few questions for this time. One of which was "How do you react to hearing that God wants to walk with you and help you overcome struggles, not condemn you?"

One of my fellow youth leaders challenged me on the wording of that question, and he and I had a little chat about the power of words and the messages they can contain. I am thankful for this being brought to my attention and honestly think it will redefine how I think of this from now on. The challenge was this: Does God want to walk with us? Or does God want us to walk with Him?

Do you catch the difference there? Does God want to walk with us, or does He invite us to walk with Him?

If we leave it as God walking with us, it indicates that we do not need to make any moves. We are walking a certain path, and He is the one that comes to walk alongside us on our journey. He may help us grow in certain areas, help us overcome certain obstacles, but ultimately we are still walking on a path of our own choosing.

But God says, "Come to me" (Matthew 11), "Remain in me...apart from me you can do nothing." (John 15), "Fix your eyes on me" (Hebrews 12).

God invites us to walk with Him. On His path. He is already on the best path, and He invites us to come over. Walk away from your path that leads to continued struggle. Walk away from your path that you think is going to make you happy. Walk away from being your own master, and come follow me, walk with me.

Answering this invitation may mean a complete overhaul of where your life is headed. Or it may mean unclenching your hands from control, and discovering the freedom of surrender. Answer God's invitation to walk with Him will always been good. He is a good and beautiful God.